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>Reported Vote: Dr.Franklin // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 1 points to con for conduct.
>Reason for Decision: con says
" make you my lovely wedded elf!"
Thats poor conduct
Reason for Mod Action> This debate was conceded. Votes that award the balance of points to the conceding side are not allowed.
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>Reported Vote: Ragnar // Mod action: [Not Removed]
>Points Awarded: 6 points to con for arguments sources and conduct.
>Reason for Decision: See vote/comments.
Reason for Mod Action> Arguments are sufficient as per the voting guidelines.
The voter clearly assess the main arguments - and presents an explanation of why each side won (or didn’t), each argument and presents a weighting at the end. The voter also clearly outlines the poor conduct behaviour, and explains why this was worthy of a violation. The voter also compares sources and explains how the different sources impacted the debate appropriately.
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>Reported Vote: WaterPheonix // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 5 points to con for arguments and sources
>Reason for Decision: Club provides many arguments that Sigmaphil cannot refute such as Club's French people not being able to adjust argument, which Sigmaphil conceded to. Also, Sigmaphil does not provide sufficient refutes to Club's argument of responsibility. Sigmaphil also mostly uses Club's sources for his first argument and uses the Bible and a baby training website in his second argument while Club uses his own sources all the way throughout. I'd like to end this vote by saying that my vote is only a reflection of the debate not a reflection of my personal opinions.
Reason for Mod Action> Arguments and sources are insufficient as per the voting guidelines.
To award arguments, the voter must (1) survey the main arguments and counterarguments in the debate, (2) weigh those arguments and counterarguments against each other, and (3) explain, based on the weighing process, how they reached their decision.
To award sources points, the voter must (1) explain how the debaters' sources impacted the debate, (2) directly assess the strength/utility of at least one source in particular cited in the debate, and (3) explain how and why one debater's use of sources overall was superior to the other's.
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These votes would and will be removed on any moderated debates; There are only a very limited number of circumstances in which we remove votes from unmoderated debates: for the reason that they are unmoderated.
In this case the default policy is not to remove votes: however, the benefit of this policy is that others can review the vote and counter it: in a way that itself would not be prohibited on other debates.
The issue here is not bias, it’s the policy we have for unmoderated debates. While I am sympathetic to your issue (and we are still discussing it); the
Voting policy for unmoderated debates has been in place since the start of Dart, and the expectation from these debates are that votes will not be removed. Whilst you likely have a point that there is an argument to be made about changing the rules, that’s not something I can decide without wider input from the community given current debate and vote expectations.
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>Reported Vote: Snoopy // Mod action: [Not Removed]
>Points Awarded: 3 points to con for arguments
>Reason for Decision: See vote
Reason for Mod Action> Arguments are sufficient as per the voting guidelines.
The reason competition style debates are no moderated is because the entire basis of the debate is inherently subjective and to be fair, it’s impossible to really moderate them appropriately.
As for rules; while moderation will take rules into account whilst assessing votes, (IE: if you award points vote as per the rules of the debate in a way that would be insufficient were it not for that rule, we won’t remove that vote), we don't enforce them.
The issue is that (a) we’re human, and interpreting potentially complex rules makes vote review so much harder; and (b) it sets a dangerous precedent whereby any debater can manufacture a set of unchallengeable rules that moderators must enforce despite potentially being unfair.
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Note: this is a full forfeit debate. Only votes cast for the forfeiting side will be moderated
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Note: this is a competition style debate and as such votes on this debate will not be moderated
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Quality did have relevant evidence if Pinkfreud08 decided to link it back to quality for it to be relevant.
Economic freedom leads to better outcomes was based on evidence that made assumptions that doesn’t support fundamental things that makes capitalism prosper.
Wylted core argument is about Economic Freedom leading to higher standard of living
Since this was based on socialization rather just healthcare it is okay for Wylted to speak more generally. What is not okay is the source is used. It had Hong Kong first due to many factors involving property rights, government integrity and judicial effectiveness. The problem of course is that economic freedom is not based on more of those things. It is based on less. Since the economy is more freer due to more capitalism less law and government influence would lead to economic outcomes. Given the source is not really accurate on why capitalism prospers it is a bad source. To be more specific corruption does not make the economy worse instead it would make it better because private businesses can lobby and change laws to improve their profits thus leading to a better economy. For Wylted to improve he would require to provide a source that does understand something fundamental like what would lead to better forms of capitalism instead of an assumption like corruption doesn't improve the economy or even economic freedom. Less laws do mean more freedom not the opposite.
Given Wylted only gave 1 initial argument and I had a problem with premise 1. I can’t exactly mention premise 2 due to the problem of premise 1. Sure the universality argument of Pro’s was based on his affordability argument but that had its own data instead of simply using previous data so I had something to work with.
I have only really targeted the core arguments because both of them don’t have substantial points. Given that 3 not substantial points are better than 1 Pinkfreud08 wins the argument vote.
In order for a claim to be substantial it requires evidence.
Affordability was based on evidence that was not given.
Universality was based on affordability but did have evidence of a survey but a survey only shows X amount of people picked this. It doesn’t show the effectiveness of it.
Quality on the other hand was based on data that states United States are not even in the top 11 for the least deaths. Given this is averaging out the numbers it does help alleviate the massive discrepancy with comparing the United States population to other countries apart from India, China and other countries. All the other countries above the United States were using public healthcare so the evidence does support public healthcare can be a factor leading to less deaths. The thing is Pinkfreud08 did not show how this was linked to quality. There can be instances where a state has more quality than another but that wasn't addressed. A way to improve Pro's arguments is to concede that cherry-picking the best areas in the US would have a drop in healthcare but that would be negated given the potential good coming out of elevating a lot more areas out of dire states.
Wylted core argument is about Economic Freedom leading to higher standard of living
Pinkfreud08's arguments are affordability, universality and quality. Given these are the 3 things healthcare can achieve reminded to us by our pseudo-intellectual Ben Shapiro debates healthcare this would mean if all arguments are sound would require either Con to provide even better results outside Pro's arguments or would not be able to show a better healthcare system.
Affordability is based on data from the Washington Post which wasn't linked instead was linking to their homepage. Even though Pinkfreud08 made it aware in Round 2 "if I've accidentally left out sources for my claims please inform me and I'll gladly provide sources." Wylted did not ask for the source that is the core of Pinkfreud08's arguments. Given this I'll have this as a claim not substantiated with evidence. Hopefully Pinkfreud08 realizes this and next doesn't make the same mistake even if your opponent does not pick up on it.
Universality is based on data under the assumption that healthcare is cheaper it would result in poorer Americans would have healthcare. Universality is contingent on the affordability argument. I can't let that slide while also the link provided was a survey not evidence that universality would help solve the problem. A link to lets another country with public healthcare having pretty much everyone insured would have helped Pinkfreud08's case.
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>Reported Vote: Omar2345 // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 3 points to pro for arguments
>Reason for Decision: See Above
Reason for Mod Action> While the voter appears to survey the main arguments from both sides sufficiently, the vote insufficiently reviews the counter arguments presented by both sides.
To award arguments, the voter must (1) survey the main arguments and counterarguments in the debate, (2) weigh those arguments and counterarguments against each other, and (3) explain, based on the weighing process, how they reached their decision.
While there were hints, from the vote it is unclear as to why cons rebuttals and counter arguments were weighted as not sufficient to overturn pros main arguments - or vice versa.
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>Reported Vote: TheGreatGameLord // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to pro
>Reason for Decision: I feel as if Uther-Penguin was the better debater here. They added the definitions in one of their rounds which I know is really hard to do. Also RM made a grammatical mistake.
Reason for Mod Action> This voter is not eligible to vote. In order to vote, an account must: (1) Read the site’s COC AND have completed 2 non-troll/non-FF debate OR have 100 forum posts.
Saying that: the vote was also insufficient on all points awarded. Please review the CoC for RfD requirements here: https://www.debateart.com/rules
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>Reported Vote: Ragnar // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 3 points to con for arguments, 1 point to pro cod conduct
>Reason for Decision: Con did not explicitly say they are conceding, but it was implied by their final round being "Okay," agreeing to how they were soundly defeated (not that they ever challenged why stoning girls to death and such is a bad thing).
Con, I suggest making your quotes bold or italic to make them stand out better from the surrounding text.
Reason for Mod Action> This vote would have been sufficient for a concession, but upon review, as the debater did not clearly and unambiguously concede the debate, I don’t think it can clearly be treated as such for the purposes of moderation.
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>Reported Vote: Wylted // Mod action: [Not Removed]
>Points Awarded: 1 points to pro for conduct
>Reason for Decision: Con forfeits which merits a loss according to the rules
Reason for Mod Action> this vote is borderline:
Why is it insufficient: The CoC prohibits awarding conduct solely on the forfeit with assessing arguments.
Why is it sufficient: The CoC allows the rules of a debate to be taken into consideration.
What makes it border line: the voter could have awarded three points for the rule violation with an almost identical RFD and it would be okay - as such it seems overly obtuse to remove the vote for awarding fewer points on such a technicality
I don’t think it’s unreasonable for Trump to have sold this plan; and as such, I don’t have enough of a deviation from the resolution imo to warrant awarding on this ground.
I don’t think pro did a great job of selling the overall cost/benefit of the wall. There are definite benefits, as pro outlines and con doesn’t appear to challenge directly, and pro points out the cost is not prohibitive.
If this was a purely financial argument - were it not for the downplaying of cost by pro and the comparison of DHS budget, I would probably have given this as a draw, as there was enough mud on the stats, by bad links and the lack of general warrant for how much the illegal immigration problem would really be mitigated by a wall.
However given the potential human cost, and the potential reductions in harms pro raises, together with the apparently low costs that would likely not effect the overall budget - overall pro shows more impacts solved due to the wall.
Cons goal here should have been to quantify the problem being solved, to show the wall may not realistically solve much of that problem, or be too expensive for the benefit. There were many avenues here for con to attack, but imo, the argument was comprehensively weak by not forming a core thesis of why a wall is not worth it. Instead, the focus was mostly on how the case for the wall has potential been exaggerated, while con establishes this fairly reasonably - that’s not what the resolution is.
The issue con has, it appears is that he’s arguing from the position that the problems aren’t severe enough to warrant such an extreme policy. Pro is pointing out (as he did with the volume of immigrants, drugs, etc), that the problems just need to be bad to warrant a wall. This is kind of how Con shoots himself in the foot; by arguing as if he just has to show Trump and others are exaggerating rather than to do the work to show the wall is unnecessary.
Pro completely undermines cons economic argument too - by arguing that competition for employees drives wages up (good), and that if filling jobs was necessary legal immigrants could be chosen.
Pros case feels pretty weak; all told. But cons rebuttal is just completely lacking here.
Cons approach appears to be primarily to claim wylted’s links all don’t work, or are invalid because they’re old. This was the majority of cases.
Con has to do more here, I’m sorry; but I found this woefully inadequate.
Many of pros examples are generally intuitive; meaning they seem pretty reasonable on their face; while you could haggle over whether exact amounts warrant a wall; just citing a bad source
And saying “nope”, imo isn’t enough for me; I need some clarification.
Don’t get me wrong, if this was a four point debate - I’d have possible awarded sources to con for pros terrible use of sources, but when they are used to support fairly reasonable sounding points, I need more from con.
On balance though, I can render a decision on this at this point:
Firstly, for the resolution; while pro defended trumps actual plan terribly; with an obtuse method of shoehorning his own plan into the debate - I don’t think this is so far outside the spirit of the resolution to count: the resolution is not whether Trump is a liar or a shitty president; but a wall on the southern border is worthwhile.
To start off with, the resolution is s bit of a mess: the title is pro/con border wall: the content claims its about the effectiveness; but pro does better in an overall framing of what the debate is - and I’m going to go with that as it appears the most sensible.
Both sides are pretty shirt and petulant throughout - as I can’t award Conduct for this debate, I’m just going tell you both to act more like grown ups.
It’s pros job in this debate to show me why the positive impacts of the wall outweigh the negative; and cons job to the opposite, saying that; con has a case to make too: and both sides need to convince me of what criteria is important to weigh when I’m assessing their argument.
To start off with, cons opening was a reasonably good case at showing that the wall may not have great effectiveness; and will not solve all problems - while I could buy everything con said - con doesn’t tie these into a weightable argument. How effective would it be? How much will it cost? And why is going ahead with the wall on balance harmful?
Pros main arguments start off with the claim that illegal immigrants are victims of rape, the wall will stop terrorists coming over the border.
While pro doesn’t provide a justification of how much a wall will reduce the incidence of this; this seems like an impact.
Pro argues the wall would be effective, citing the example of Yuma; and a dead link. Pro doesn’t make it clear how this would be extended and applicable; to the rest of the border as by definition it doesn’t cover the whole border.
Pro attempts to quantify the yearly financial impact of healthcare for illegal immigrants too; then rounds the argument out with an appeal to enforcing the law (which isn’t clear how it fits into pros value or impacts), and estimates the cost.
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>Reported Vote: King_8 // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to con
>Reason for Decision: Bite my shiny metal ass. Returning the favor since Pinkfreud started this FIRST. If my votes get deleted, then his votes need to be deleted as well.
Proof:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1120
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1113
Reason for Mod Action> This is a full forfeit debate votes can only be cast in support of the forfeiting side.
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Note: this is a competition style debate and as such votes on this debate will not be moderated
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Note: this is a competition style debate and as such votes on this debate will not be moderated
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>Reported Vote: King_8 // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to pro
>Reason for Decision: Bite my shiny metal ass. Pinkfreud started this first, so returning the favor.
Proof:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1120
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1113
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1049
Reason for Mod Action> Revenge votes are absolutely unacceptable and completely disallowed.
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>Reported Vote: King_8 // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to con
>Reason for Decision: Reason:
Bite my shiny metal ass. Returning the favor since Pinkfreud started this FIRST. If my votes get deleted, then his votes need to be deleted as well, then this will hopefully be an end to this and he learns his lesson.
Proof:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1120
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1113
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1049
Reason for Mod Action> Revenge votes are absolutely unacceptable and completely disallowed.
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Conduct; whilst I may be able to overlook the Gish Gallop - which is significantly unfair and odious: con appeared to dial back some of his arguments to not do the same. What takes this over the edge for the conduct violation is lack of attribution and plagiarism. Con is not arguing against an AIG source and their position: and should not be tricked into doing some due to false attribution. Worse: such lack of attribution leaves the site open to claims of copyright infringement. Added together, imo this was poor conduct that was sufficiently unfair and unreasonable to warrant the penalty.
As his argument depends upon this; I feel its his burden to show this is true (com pointed out this argument was circular multiple times). These refutations mostly end up getting dropped by pro to be replaced by a whole swathe of new quotes.
The issue here, is that pros entire argument appears to be justifying his interpretation. Strongly doing so, still makes this interpretation. Pros argument boils down to a few precepts that he holds true (worship, the trinity, and a couple of others), but never fully justified these to be true.
As a result; there’s no real objective argument pro has that the bible teaches Jesus is God as opposed to some closely related divine being, or son.
Pro listed how he could know a book was talking about fish; but did not provide a similar thesis about how the bible unambiguously shows Jesus is God in the same way.
As a result of all these: arguments to con.
Sources:
The NPR source on the origins of Jesus being God was excellent, this basically explains the elevation of God, the way the bible has been interpreted, and lays open a pretty attack for pro to defend. This helps provided an excellent means to weight pros and cons interpretations, to come off on cons side. This substantially aids the warrant of his position.
Additionally, cons Donald Trump, and WBC sources help built up a picture of a bible that can be taken many different ways: this forced pro into a corner, and ended up drawing out the concession of the resolution.
Pros sources were mostly bible quotes and interpretive. There were no knockout sources that elevated his interpretation to the point where it was definitive.
This whole section is a bit of mess by pro. Pro needs to sit down and explain the differences in behaviours, why they’re okay, and why the underlying syllogism is invalid. Pro doesn’t do that; and really just states that cons logic is bad, with little in the way of justification. There was a lot of talk around the idea that Jesus is a sinners, and whether John should be believed that didn’t really appear to be fully relevant to the key part of this topic.
The main thing is that con states that if Jesus was God - they should behave as such: as he doesn’t, he isn’t. This core argument is unrefuted by pro who mostly danced around this point.
3.) more arguments
I agree with con that this is a Gish Gallop. Pro threw a wall of Biblical quotes. There was almost no context, simply bold parts - if pro is not willing to add an argument - I cannot accept this as a valid argument.
As a result; I’m not going to accept these points as counting towards pros arguments.
4.) What does the bible teach.
Con throughout has argued that the bible is interpreted. He’s explained passages can be used to justify that Donald Trump was predicted by the bible- early Christians did not beleive Jesus was God, and that interpretation is required at all levels.
Pro argues that interpretation is not needed (except where he conceded the resolution) by using the fish example.
In his examples, pro may salvage the debate by showing cleat and unambiguous examples that the bible claims Jesus is God specifically.
All pros examples fall short of one thing: stating Jesus is God.
Con argues that worship is not a big problem, and open to interpretation; as not necessarily being that Jesus was God and argues that the word made flesh could refer to others.
What appears to become clear is that pro requires us to understand and use trinity in order to understand why God is a different person than Jesus - but the same.
On this point, pro was very slippery in general. Pro didn’t really answer the issue with the interpretation of the bible; simply appealed to the possibility that the book could potentially teach something if it was largely unambiguous.
Pro concedes the point by claiming that Gods assistance is required to understand the Bible. Pro stated this is not about the existence or not ; but more important pro concedes his own implicit standard of ambiguity is not sufficient.
Con points out this concession several times and I concur. How can the bible teach that Jesus was God if the only way this conclusion can be drawn is if you need an additional external source to help.
>>>>this on its own concedes the debate resolution, and warrants arguments being given to con.<<<<
2.) different behaviours.
Cons argument is that Jesus exhibited different behaviours from God; and cites a number of examples with scriptural reference.
While I think this area was one of cons weakest - pros response didn’t make sense: I couldn’t make sense of his initial rebuttal logically. Pro doesn’t challenge the underlying syllogism at all. Pro argues that the premise is trying to justify must be rejected to assume the Bible doesn’t teach God.
Con points this out, and points out that pro is begging the question by saying that you can’t reject the trinity - the trinity is what pro is attempting to support. Con also points out that pro dismissed key parts of the Old Testament without providing any explanation to disprove it.
Pro goes on to basically state that con is completely wrong in his logic, but doesn’t appear to explain why or how this is the case: pro then appears to assert that Jesus is Part of a Trinitarian God - but doesn’t explain how this solves the issue con raised; and appears to also be circular.
This is an excellent argument here; though a little kritiky: the bible doesn’t teach anything, it’s words are often interpreted.
Pros counter is basically that the words can’t be interpreted if they are largely unambiguous - or not plausibly ambiguous.
In terms of the resolution - if Jesus is not god and was invented, the bible could still teach it so, so I can’t really judge pros argument about early Christians though it’s an excellent point.
Con does a great job of explaining how interpretation can and is used extensively, and how the bible wouldn’t be teaching in this case: and points out that pro himself appears to be conceding the debate by indicating that study alone is not sufficient.
Pros response is slippery to say the least: that if it’s interpreted how does con know that the interpretation doesn’t match intent; he then straw mans pro by arguing that he’s claiming that no book could teach anything. Pro doubles down (I wrote that before I saw cons use of the same word) on his concession: by saying that we need God’s help to understand the bible.
I’m not so keen on the formalized round structure, and prefer more back and forth. Mainly because R1 would be you saying why a flood is true, and my R2 would be explaining in part why the evidence doesn’t show a flood. Most of the stuff in my first rebuttal would probably reference my opening round - so it often makes more sense and as less redundancy to just let the opening round be arguments and an initial rebuttal, especially for such diametrically opposes positions.
If you are less rigid on the structure (I prefer more fluid back and forth), and can extend arguments to 1 week (I probably won’t need more than 2 days but I could be super busy over the next weekend or two), I would like to take this.
Hi Al0ne, welcome to the site; before you can vote you must have completed 2 debates, or 100 forum posts, and have read the code of conduct (I have provided a link below).
To try and make sure votes are fair and impartial, we have list of requirements you need to use to construct a reason for you voting decision, simply saying one side is better is not enough as of means anyone would be able to vote against s position or person they didn’t like. It’s important that debates are not simply popularity contests - either for the position or the person. This goes make it harder and more arduous to vote, but does try and make it so the better debater wins. Because of this, I’m afraid I’m going to have to remove your vote.
That said, welcome to the site!
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>Reported Vote: Al0ne // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 5 points for sources and arguments.
>Reason for Decision: Con definently won this.
>Reason for Mod Action: Reason for Mod Action: This vote is not eligible to vote. In order to vote, an account must: (1) Read the site’s COC AND have completed 2 non-troll/non-FF debate OR have 100 forum posts.
The vote is insufficient, the voter should review the voting requirements section of the code of conduct here: https://www.debateart.com/rules
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Just so you know; I subscribe to all debates I haven’t voted in; and vote based on how long is remaining. I’ve only missed votes when there are a lot ending at the same time; or when I’ve been super busy (as I have been the last couple of weeks).
As a debate that sucked up spare time is mostly over now, I should have more time to vote and catch up :)
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>Reported Vote: Speedrace // Mod action: [Not Removed]
>Points Awarded: 3 points to pro for arguments.
Reason for Mod Action> This vote was deemed sufficient as per site policy.
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He made an a debate that was impossible to accept, you asked for the debate; he challenged you, you accepted.
Did it occur to you that he just copy and pasted the debate description? Rather than him maliciously trying to troll you?
Perhaps it would be better to, perhaps ASK him first before freaking out?
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>Reported Vote: Dr.Franklin // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 1 points to con for conduct.
>Reason for Decision: con says
" make you my lovely wedded elf!"
Thats poor conduct
Reason for Mod Action> This debate was conceded. Votes that award the balance of points to the conceding side are not allowed.
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I am in the process of reviewing it.
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>Reported Vote: Ragnar // Mod action: [Not Removed]
>Points Awarded: 6 points to con for arguments sources and conduct.
>Reason for Decision: See vote/comments.
Reason for Mod Action> Arguments are sufficient as per the voting guidelines.
The voter clearly assess the main arguments - and presents an explanation of why each side won (or didn’t), each argument and presents a weighting at the end. The voter also clearly outlines the poor conduct behaviour, and explains why this was worthy of a violation. The voter also compares sources and explains how the different sources impacted the debate appropriately.
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>Reported Vote: WaterPheonix // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 5 points to con for arguments and sources
>Reason for Decision: Club provides many arguments that Sigmaphil cannot refute such as Club's French people not being able to adjust argument, which Sigmaphil conceded to. Also, Sigmaphil does not provide sufficient refutes to Club's argument of responsibility. Sigmaphil also mostly uses Club's sources for his first argument and uses the Bible and a baby training website in his second argument while Club uses his own sources all the way throughout. I'd like to end this vote by saying that my vote is only a reflection of the debate not a reflection of my personal opinions.
Reason for Mod Action> Arguments and sources are insufficient as per the voting guidelines.
To award arguments, the voter must (1) survey the main arguments and counterarguments in the debate, (2) weigh those arguments and counterarguments against each other, and (3) explain, based on the weighing process, how they reached their decision.
To award sources points, the voter must (1) explain how the debaters' sources impacted the debate, (2) directly assess the strength/utility of at least one source in particular cited in the debate, and (3) explain how and why one debater's use of sources overall was superior to the other's.
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It’s okay RM: troll votes on troll debates don’t get removed, only countered.
These votes would and will be removed on any moderated debates; There are only a very limited number of circumstances in which we remove votes from unmoderated debates: for the reason that they are unmoderated.
In this case the default policy is not to remove votes: however, the benefit of this policy is that others can review the vote and counter it: in a way that itself would not be prohibited on other debates.
The issue here is not bias, it’s the policy we have for unmoderated debates. While I am sympathetic to your issue (and we are still discussing it); the
Voting policy for unmoderated debates has been in place since the start of Dart, and the expectation from these debates are that votes will not be removed. Whilst you likely have a point that there is an argument to be made about changing the rules, that’s not something I can decide without wider input from the community given current debate and vote expectations.
Done
Let me know if you would like me to delete the vote so you can redo.
Done!
I understand what you’re saying; but we do not enforce rules debaters place in the debate for two specific issues I mentioned below.
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>Reported Vote: Snoopy // Mod action: [Not Removed]
>Points Awarded: 3 points to con for arguments
>Reason for Decision: See vote
Reason for Mod Action> Arguments are sufficient as per the voting guidelines.
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The reason competition style debates are no moderated is because the entire basis of the debate is inherently subjective and to be fair, it’s impossible to really moderate them appropriately.
As for rules; while moderation will take rules into account whilst assessing votes, (IE: if you award points vote as per the rules of the debate in a way that would be insufficient were it not for that rule, we won’t remove that vote), we don't enforce them.
The issue is that (a) we’re human, and interpreting potentially complex rules makes vote review so much harder; and (b) it sets a dangerous precedent whereby any debater can manufacture a set of unchallengeable rules that moderators must enforce despite potentially being unfair.
Saying that, did you mean to vote pro instead of tieing them?
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Note: this is a full forfeit debate. Only votes cast for the forfeiting side will be moderated
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RfD pt4
Quality did have relevant evidence if Pinkfreud08 decided to link it back to quality for it to be relevant.
Economic freedom leads to better outcomes was based on evidence that made assumptions that doesn’t support fundamental things that makes capitalism prosper.
RFD PT 3
Wylted core argument is about Economic Freedom leading to higher standard of living
Since this was based on socialization rather just healthcare it is okay for Wylted to speak more generally. What is not okay is the source is used. It had Hong Kong first due to many factors involving property rights, government integrity and judicial effectiveness. The problem of course is that economic freedom is not based on more of those things. It is based on less. Since the economy is more freer due to more capitalism less law and government influence would lead to economic outcomes. Given the source is not really accurate on why capitalism prospers it is a bad source. To be more specific corruption does not make the economy worse instead it would make it better because private businesses can lobby and change laws to improve their profits thus leading to a better economy. For Wylted to improve he would require to provide a source that does understand something fundamental like what would lead to better forms of capitalism instead of an assumption like corruption doesn't improve the economy or even economic freedom. Less laws do mean more freedom not the opposite.
Given Wylted only gave 1 initial argument and I had a problem with premise 1. I can’t exactly mention premise 2 due to the problem of premise 1. Sure the universality argument of Pro’s was based on his affordability argument but that had its own data instead of simply using previous data so I had something to work with.
I have only really targeted the core arguments because both of them don’t have substantial points. Given that 3 not substantial points are better than 1 Pinkfreud08 wins the argument vote.
In order for a claim to be substantial it requires evidence.
Affordability was based on evidence that was not given.
Universality was based on affordability but did have evidence of a survey but a survey only shows X amount of people picked this. It doesn’t show the effectiveness of it.
RFD pt2
Quality on the other hand was based on data that states United States are not even in the top 11 for the least deaths. Given this is averaging out the numbers it does help alleviate the massive discrepancy with comparing the United States population to other countries apart from India, China and other countries. All the other countries above the United States were using public healthcare so the evidence does support public healthcare can be a factor leading to less deaths. The thing is Pinkfreud08 did not show how this was linked to quality. There can be instances where a state has more quality than another but that wasn't addressed. A way to improve Pro's arguments is to concede that cherry-picking the best areas in the US would have a drop in healthcare but that would be negated given the potential good coming out of elevating a lot more areas out of dire states.
Wylted core argument is about Economic Freedom leading to higher standard of living
RFD Pt1:
This is a long debate so I'll just stick to one.
Pinkfreud08's arguments are affordability, universality and quality. Given these are the 3 things healthcare can achieve reminded to us by our pseudo-intellectual Ben Shapiro debates healthcare this would mean if all arguments are sound would require either Con to provide even better results outside Pro's arguments or would not be able to show a better healthcare system.
Affordability is based on data from the Washington Post which wasn't linked instead was linking to their homepage. Even though Pinkfreud08 made it aware in Round 2 "if I've accidentally left out sources for my claims please inform me and I'll gladly provide sources." Wylted did not ask for the source that is the core of Pinkfreud08's arguments. Given this I'll have this as a claim not substantiated with evidence. Hopefully Pinkfreud08 realizes this and next doesn't make the same mistake even if your opponent does not pick up on it.
Universality is based on data under the assumption that healthcare is cheaper it would result in poorer Americans would have healthcare. Universality is contingent on the affordability argument. I can't let that slide while also the link provided was a survey not evidence that universality would help solve the problem. A link to lets another country with public healthcare having pretty much everyone insured would have helped Pinkfreud08's case.
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>Reported Vote: Omar2345 // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 3 points to pro for arguments
>Reason for Decision: See Above
Reason for Mod Action> While the voter appears to survey the main arguments from both sides sufficiently, the vote insufficiently reviews the counter arguments presented by both sides.
To award arguments, the voter must (1) survey the main arguments and counterarguments in the debate, (2) weigh those arguments and counterarguments against each other, and (3) explain, based on the weighing process, how they reached their decision.
While there were hints, from the vote it is unclear as to why cons rebuttals and counter arguments were weighted as not sufficient to overturn pros main arguments - or vice versa.
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>Reported Vote: TheGreatGameLord // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to pro
>Reason for Decision: I feel as if Uther-Penguin was the better debater here. They added the definitions in one of their rounds which I know is really hard to do. Also RM made a grammatical mistake.
Reason for Mod Action> This voter is not eligible to vote. In order to vote, an account must: (1) Read the site’s COC AND have completed 2 non-troll/non-FF debate OR have 100 forum posts.
Saying that: the vote was also insufficient on all points awarded. Please review the CoC for RfD requirements here: https://www.debateart.com/rules
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>Reported Vote: Ragnar // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 3 points to con for arguments, 1 point to pro cod conduct
>Reason for Decision: Con did not explicitly say they are conceding, but it was implied by their final round being "Okay," agreeing to how they were soundly defeated (not that they ever challenged why stoning girls to death and such is a bad thing).
Con, I suggest making your quotes bold or italic to make them stand out better from the surrounding text.
Reason for Mod Action> This vote would have been sufficient for a concession, but upon review, as the debater did not clearly and unambiguously concede the debate, I don’t think it can clearly be treated as such for the purposes of moderation.
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>Reported Vote: Wylted // Mod action: [Not Removed]
>Points Awarded: 1 points to pro for conduct
>Reason for Decision: Con forfeits which merits a loss according to the rules
Reason for Mod Action> this vote is borderline:
Why is it insufficient: The CoC prohibits awarding conduct solely on the forfeit with assessing arguments.
Why is it sufficient: The CoC allows the rules of a debate to be taken into consideration.
What makes it border line: the voter could have awarded three points for the rule violation with an almost identical RFD and it would be okay - as such it seems overly obtuse to remove the vote for awarding fewer points on such a technicality
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I don’t think it’s unreasonable for Trump to have sold this plan; and as such, I don’t have enough of a deviation from the resolution imo to warrant awarding on this ground.
I don’t think pro did a great job of selling the overall cost/benefit of the wall. There are definite benefits, as pro outlines and con doesn’t appear to challenge directly, and pro points out the cost is not prohibitive.
If this was a purely financial argument - were it not for the downplaying of cost by pro and the comparison of DHS budget, I would probably have given this as a draw, as there was enough mud on the stats, by bad links and the lack of general warrant for how much the illegal immigration problem would really be mitigated by a wall.
However given the potential human cost, and the potential reductions in harms pro raises, together with the apparently low costs that would likely not effect the overall budget - overall pro shows more impacts solved due to the wall.
Cons goal here should have been to quantify the problem being solved, to show the wall may not realistically solve much of that problem, or be too expensive for the benefit. There were many avenues here for con to attack, but imo, the argument was comprehensively weak by not forming a core thesis of why a wall is not worth it. Instead, the focus was mostly on how the case for the wall has potential been exaggerated, while con establishes this fairly reasonably - that’s not what the resolution is.
As a result of this: arguments have to go to pro.
The issue con has, it appears is that he’s arguing from the position that the problems aren’t severe enough to warrant such an extreme policy. Pro is pointing out (as he did with the volume of immigrants, drugs, etc), that the problems just need to be bad to warrant a wall. This is kind of how Con shoots himself in the foot; by arguing as if he just has to show Trump and others are exaggerating rather than to do the work to show the wall is unnecessary.
Pro completely undermines cons economic argument too - by arguing that competition for employees drives wages up (good), and that if filling jobs was necessary legal immigrants could be chosen.
Pros case feels pretty weak; all told. But cons rebuttal is just completely lacking here.
Cons approach appears to be primarily to claim wylted’s links all don’t work, or are invalid because they’re old. This was the majority of cases.
Con has to do more here, I’m sorry; but I found this woefully inadequate.
Many of pros examples are generally intuitive; meaning they seem pretty reasonable on their face; while you could haggle over whether exact amounts warrant a wall; just citing a bad source
And saying “nope”, imo isn’t enough for me; I need some clarification.
Don’t get me wrong, if this was a four point debate - I’d have possible awarded sources to con for pros terrible use of sources, but when they are used to support fairly reasonable sounding points, I need more from con.
On balance though, I can render a decision on this at this point:
Firstly, for the resolution; while pro defended trumps actual plan terribly; with an obtuse method of shoehorning his own plan into the debate - I don’t think this is so far outside the spirit of the resolution to count: the resolution is not whether Trump is a liar or a shitty president; but a wall on the southern border is worthwhile.
To start off with, the resolution is s bit of a mess: the title is pro/con border wall: the content claims its about the effectiveness; but pro does better in an overall framing of what the debate is - and I’m going to go with that as it appears the most sensible.
Both sides are pretty shirt and petulant throughout - as I can’t award Conduct for this debate, I’m just going tell you both to act more like grown ups.
It’s pros job in this debate to show me why the positive impacts of the wall outweigh the negative; and cons job to the opposite, saying that; con has a case to make too: and both sides need to convince me of what criteria is important to weigh when I’m assessing their argument.
To start off with, cons opening was a reasonably good case at showing that the wall may not have great effectiveness; and will not solve all problems - while I could buy everything con said - con doesn’t tie these into a weightable argument. How effective would it be? How much will it cost? And why is going ahead with the wall on balance harmful?
Pros main arguments start off with the claim that illegal immigrants are victims of rape, the wall will stop terrorists coming over the border.
While pro doesn’t provide a justification of how much a wall will reduce the incidence of this; this seems like an impact.
Pro argues the wall would be effective, citing the example of Yuma; and a dead link. Pro doesn’t make it clear how this would be extended and applicable; to the rest of the border as by definition it doesn’t cover the whole border.
Pro attempts to quantify the yearly financial impact of healthcare for illegal immigrants too; then rounds the argument out with an appeal to enforcing the law (which isn’t clear how it fits into pros value or impacts), and estimates the cost.
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>Reported Vote: King_8 // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to con
>Reason for Decision: Bite my shiny metal ass. Returning the favor since Pinkfreud started this FIRST. If my votes get deleted, then his votes need to be deleted as well.
Proof:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1120
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1113
Reason for Mod Action> This is a full forfeit debate votes can only be cast in support of the forfeiting side.
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Note: this is a competition style debate and as such votes on this debate will not be moderated
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Note: this is a competition style debate and as such votes on this debate will not be moderated
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>Reported Vote: King_8 // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to pro
>Reason for Decision: Bite my shiny metal ass. Pinkfreud started this first, so returning the favor.
Proof:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1120
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1113
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1049
Reason for Mod Action> Revenge votes are absolutely unacceptable and completely disallowed.
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>Reported Vote: King_8 // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 7 points to con
>Reason for Decision: Reason:
Bite my shiny metal ass. Returning the favor since Pinkfreud started this FIRST. If my votes get deleted, then his votes need to be deleted as well, then this will hopefully be an end to this and he learns his lesson.
Proof:
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1120
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1113
https://www.debateart.com/debates/1049
Reason for Mod Action> Revenge votes are absolutely unacceptable and completely disallowed.
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Conduct; whilst I may be able to overlook the Gish Gallop - which is significantly unfair and odious: con appeared to dial back some of his arguments to not do the same. What takes this over the edge for the conduct violation is lack of attribution and plagiarism. Con is not arguing against an AIG source and their position: and should not be tricked into doing some due to false attribution. Worse: such lack of attribution leaves the site open to claims of copyright infringement. Added together, imo this was poor conduct that was sufficiently unfair and unreasonable to warrant the penalty.
Conduct to con too
As his argument depends upon this; I feel its his burden to show this is true (com pointed out this argument was circular multiple times). These refutations mostly end up getting dropped by pro to be replaced by a whole swathe of new quotes.
The issue here, is that pros entire argument appears to be justifying his interpretation. Strongly doing so, still makes this interpretation. Pros argument boils down to a few precepts that he holds true (worship, the trinity, and a couple of others), but never fully justified these to be true.
As a result; there’s no real objective argument pro has that the bible teaches Jesus is God as opposed to some closely related divine being, or son.
Pro listed how he could know a book was talking about fish; but did not provide a similar thesis about how the bible unambiguously shows Jesus is God in the same way.
As a result of all these: arguments to con.
Sources:
The NPR source on the origins of Jesus being God was excellent, this basically explains the elevation of God, the way the bible has been interpreted, and lays open a pretty attack for pro to defend. This helps provided an excellent means to weight pros and cons interpretations, to come off on cons side. This substantially aids the warrant of his position.
Additionally, cons Donald Trump, and WBC sources help built up a picture of a bible that can be taken many different ways: this forced pro into a corner, and ended up drawing out the concession of the resolution.
Pros sources were mostly bible quotes and interpretive. There were no knockout sources that elevated his interpretation to the point where it was definitive.
As a result; sources to con.
This whole section is a bit of mess by pro. Pro needs to sit down and explain the differences in behaviours, why they’re okay, and why the underlying syllogism is invalid. Pro doesn’t do that; and really just states that cons logic is bad, with little in the way of justification. There was a lot of talk around the idea that Jesus is a sinners, and whether John should be believed that didn’t really appear to be fully relevant to the key part of this topic.
The main thing is that con states that if Jesus was God - they should behave as such: as he doesn’t, he isn’t. This core argument is unrefuted by pro who mostly danced around this point.
3.) more arguments
I agree with con that this is a Gish Gallop. Pro threw a wall of Biblical quotes. There was almost no context, simply bold parts - if pro is not willing to add an argument - I cannot accept this as a valid argument.
As a result; I’m not going to accept these points as counting towards pros arguments.
4.) What does the bible teach.
Con throughout has argued that the bible is interpreted. He’s explained passages can be used to justify that Donald Trump was predicted by the bible- early Christians did not beleive Jesus was God, and that interpretation is required at all levels.
Pro argues that interpretation is not needed (except where he conceded the resolution) by using the fish example.
In his examples, pro may salvage the debate by showing cleat and unambiguous examples that the bible claims Jesus is God specifically.
All pros examples fall short of one thing: stating Jesus is God.
Con argues that worship is not a big problem, and open to interpretation; as not necessarily being that Jesus was God and argues that the word made flesh could refer to others.
What appears to become clear is that pro requires us to understand and use trinity in order to understand why God is a different person than Jesus - but the same.
On this point, pro was very slippery in general. Pro didn’t really answer the issue with the interpretation of the bible; simply appealed to the possibility that the book could potentially teach something if it was largely unambiguous.
Pro concedes the point by claiming that Gods assistance is required to understand the Bible. Pro stated this is not about the existence or not ; but more important pro concedes his own implicit standard of ambiguity is not sufficient.
Con points out this concession several times and I concur. How can the bible teach that Jesus was God if the only way this conclusion can be drawn is if you need an additional external source to help.
>>>>this on its own concedes the debate resolution, and warrants arguments being given to con.<<<<
2.) different behaviours.
Cons argument is that Jesus exhibited different behaviours from God; and cites a number of examples with scriptural reference.
While I think this area was one of cons weakest - pros response didn’t make sense: I couldn’t make sense of his initial rebuttal logically. Pro doesn’t challenge the underlying syllogism at all. Pro argues that the premise is trying to justify must be rejected to assume the Bible doesn’t teach God.
Con points this out, and points out that pro is begging the question by saying that you can’t reject the trinity - the trinity is what pro is attempting to support. Con also points out that pro dismissed key parts of the Old Testament without providing any explanation to disprove it.
Pro goes on to basically state that con is completely wrong in his logic, but doesn’t appear to explain why or how this is the case: pro then appears to assert that Jesus is Part of a Trinitarian God - but doesn’t explain how this solves the issue con raised; and appears to also be circular.
1.) The bible doesn’t teach anything.
This is an excellent argument here; though a little kritiky: the bible doesn’t teach anything, it’s words are often interpreted.
Pros counter is basically that the words can’t be interpreted if they are largely unambiguous - or not plausibly ambiguous.
In terms of the resolution - if Jesus is not god and was invented, the bible could still teach it so, so I can’t really judge pros argument about early Christians though it’s an excellent point.
Con does a great job of explaining how interpretation can and is used extensively, and how the bible wouldn’t be teaching in this case: and points out that pro himself appears to be conceding the debate by indicating that study alone is not sufficient.
Pros response is slippery to say the least: that if it’s interpreted how does con know that the interpretation doesn’t match intent; he then straw mans pro by arguing that he’s claiming that no book could teach anything. Pro doubles down (I wrote that before I saw cons use of the same word) on his concession: by saying that we need God’s help to understand the bible.
It’s on my list
1 day left
I’m not so keen on the formalized round structure, and prefer more back and forth. Mainly because R1 would be you saying why a flood is true, and my R2 would be explaining in part why the evidence doesn’t show a flood. Most of the stuff in my first rebuttal would probably reference my opening round - so it often makes more sense and as less redundancy to just let the opening round be arguments and an initial rebuttal, especially for such diametrically opposes positions.
If you are less rigid on the structure (I prefer more fluid back and forth), and can extend arguments to 1 week (I probably won’t need more than 2 days but I could be super busy over the next weekend or two), I would like to take this.
Hi Al0ne, welcome to the site; before you can vote you must have completed 2 debates, or 100 forum posts, and have read the code of conduct (I have provided a link below).
To try and make sure votes are fair and impartial, we have list of requirements you need to use to construct a reason for you voting decision, simply saying one side is better is not enough as of means anyone would be able to vote against s position or person they didn’t like. It’s important that debates are not simply popularity contests - either for the position or the person. This goes make it harder and more arduous to vote, but does try and make it so the better debater wins. Because of this, I’m afraid I’m going to have to remove your vote.
That said, welcome to the site!
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>Reported Vote: Al0ne // Mod action: [Removed]
>Points Awarded: 5 points for sources and arguments.
>Reason for Decision: Con definently won this.
>Reason for Mod Action: Reason for Mod Action: This vote is not eligible to vote. In order to vote, an account must: (1) Read the site’s COC AND have completed 2 non-troll/non-FF debate OR have 100 forum posts.
The vote is insufficient, the voter should review the voting requirements section of the code of conduct here: https://www.debateart.com/rules
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Screenshotted!!
I can join for pro
Thanks for the debate; I genuinely enjoyed that, and appreciate that you stayed all the way to the end!
It’s on my list :)
Just so you know; I subscribe to all debates I haven’t voted in; and vote based on how long is remaining. I’ve only missed votes when there are a lot ending at the same time; or when I’ve been super busy (as I have been the last couple of weeks).
As a debate that sucked up spare time is mostly over now, I should have more time to vote and catch up :)
I have about 14 debates in my list now :)
Thanks for your reply; it’s refreshing. I think your debate was one of the better debates on this subject, so don’t feel too badly about this debate.
No; but I don’t think the Bible is harmful to society.
If it was 1 week args, I’ll take it.
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>Reported Vote: Speedrace // Mod action: [Not Removed]
>Points Awarded: 3 points to pro for arguments.
Reason for Mod Action> This vote was deemed sufficient as per site policy.
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